Vidna Obmana — Revealed By Composed Nature

Revealed By Composed Nature is the most recent release in Zoharum’s Vidna Obmana reissue series. Originally released in the year 1990, the album is a prime example of varied and hypnotic ambient sound-making. With the eight-track album moving between the lullingly haunting, felt and glowing, and the grandly hazed and rising.

The release appears as a CD, and as with all of the reissues in this series we get new moody black and white photo artwork on the six-panel digipak, and for this album, it's fittingly close-up pictures of decaying flower petals and earthy organic matter. So once again a really nice and classy presentation.

As with all these reissues, we get a new remaster from Dirk Serriers( who is of course behind the Vidna Obmana project) and this is wonderfully realized with a good balance tone clarity, and the recordings original mood/ mystery still very much in place. The eight tracks here date from between the years 1989 and 1990- with Serriers playing the following- electronics, loops, tapes, and acoustic treatments. One of the tracks here features additional electronic/ tape elements from US ambient and electroacoustic project PBK- though otherwise, it’s all purely a Vidna Obmana release.

By ambient stands, the tracks here are fairly short- falling between the three and six-minute mark, though none of them ever feel cut short or less than wholly entrancing. We move from the lulling pastoral simmer of “Out From The Garden Reminded” with delicately picked string tones and warming loop tone glow. Onto the uneasy tone climb and sinister, slight wonky ambient glow of “until The Glowering Space 1”. There’s hazed and drifting vibe bob meets warm melody sweeps of “Forever Upon The Wave”. With the album been topped off with warbling ‘n’ blurred dramatic key ascend meets almost slurred shoegaze haze of “By The Unknown Evening”.

It’s great to Zoharum continuing with this reissue series of Vidna Obmana’s back catalogue, and Revealed By Composed Nature is most certainly another wonderful realized and skilful composed ambient album. This reissue only has a pressing of just 400 copies, so if this is your thing- I’d act sooner than later to make sure you manage to secure a copy before it goes out of print.